


Want

by ScoutLover



Category: Leverage
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScoutLover/pseuds/ScoutLover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot considers what his life has cost him</p>
            </blockquote>





	Want

**Title:** Want  
 **Characters:** Eliot, Sophie  
 **AN:** Written for [](http://leverageland.livejournal.com/profile)[**leverageland**](http://leverageland.livejournal.com/) ; a tag to “The Studio Job”  
 **Summary:** Eliot considers what his life has cost him  
 **Word Count:** 985  
 _Banner by[](http://trappercreekd.livejournal.com/profile)[ **trappercreekd**](http://trappercreekd.livejournal.com/)_

[ ](http://s12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/ScoutLover/Leverage/?action=view&current=banner.png)

  
He set the battered black case among the other bags on the luggage cart and turned away, fighting the urge to take the guitar out and play one more time. But the job was over. Mitch Kirkwood was behind bars, and Kaye Lynn was on her way to the life she deserved.

And he _wasn’t_ Kenneth Crane. That guitar represented everything he’d never have, everything that could never be, and every wrong turn he’d ever made in his life.

_Some roads, once you start goin’ down ’em, you can’t turn back–_

He felt more than heard the entrance of another person into the room and tensed, instincts instantly on alert. But the faintest whiff of a light, sweet – and expensive – perfume reached him and he relaxed, recognizing the scent, and its wearer, at once.

_Sophie._

He sighed softly and bowed his head, reflexively bracing himself. She was too damn perceptive for his liking, had a knack for looking too deep and seeing too much. That was an essential skill for a grifter, but it was more than a little unnerving in a friend. He’d worked too long and too hard to become a shadow, something barely there and visible only when he chose. He didn’t need her dragging him out into the light and laying him open before he was ready.

Especially not with so much of what this job had stirred up in him still so close to the surface.

Sophie stopped halfway into the room, wary of intruding upon him. He was standing before the luggage cart, his head bowed and his face hidden behind a curtain of long hair. He’d been unusually quiet and distant since they’d left the bar – and Kaye Lynn – last night, and had taken no part in their customary post-job celebration. They’d all assumed he’d gone back to Kaye Lynn, to spend what time he had left in Memphis with her, but Sophie realized now that they’d been wrong. However much the girl had come to mean to him over the course of the job, and whatever they had shared, when he had walked away from her last night it had been for good. For _her_ good.

Though, looking at him now, she suspected the break hadn’t been quite as clean as he had intended.

“Where are the others?” she asked, knowing he was aware of her presence and wouldn’t appreciate any silent staring.

He shrugged slightly. “Hardison and Parker are out seein’ Memphis – or robbin’ it blind – and Nate’s downstairs havin’ one last plate of ribs.”

Sophie almost gagged. “Hasn’t he had enough of those things?”

He shrugged again. “Hard to beat Memphis ribs,” he said flatly. “There’s a reason they’re famous.”

She frowned slightly, worriedly, wishing he’d look at her. He sounded tired, as if he hadn’t slept at all, and drained, as if this job had taken more than its usual toll. And not because of the fight he’d had with Kirkwood’s henchman.

“You sang wonderfully the other night,” she said quietly, starting slowly toward him. “When Nate said you would be our fiddle, I had no idea what to expect. Although,” she smiled, “I suppose by now we shouldn’t be surprised by the talents you pull out of – what does Hardison call it? – your utility belt.”

He sighed and raised his head, shaking his hair out of his face. “I ain’t fuckin’ Batman,” he breathed tiredly. “And I can’t be Johnny Cash.”

She frowned at the words, spoken so softly she barely heard them, struck by their odd tone. Lately Eliot seemed to be struggling under an increasingly heavy burden of regret, of _guilt_ , as if every old wound in him were coming open at once. “Johnny Cash?”

He noted the subtle change in her gaze, the sharpening intensity, and was instantly on alert. This was the Sophie he’d seen so often on the job, the warm and charming grifter who could con the secrets from a dead man. And this time _he_ was the mark.

“Just somethin’ Kaye Lynn said,” he answered at last, forcing himself to meet her dark gaze without flinching. “Don’t mean anything now.”

She felt a sharp twinge of sorrow as she watched him school his face into an expressionless mask, as his shadowed blue eyes grew cool and blank. Whatever was going on inside him, he seemed determined not to share it, and she wondered if there would ever come a day when they would all completely trust each other.

“Eliot–”

“Don’t,” he said softly, hoarsely. “Please. We came here to do a job, and it’s done. Good guys won, bad guy lost.” He shrugged and slipped his hands into his pockets. “And now it’s time to leave.”

“Just like that,” she said softly, then sighed and shook her head. “You’re allowed to feel things, you know. You’re allowed to _want_ things!”

For a moment he almost loved her. Sophie Devereaux, queen of the grifters, giving _him_ permission to be human. As if she had no idea who she was talking to. As if he _deserved_ such a thing.

_When you’ve done the things I’ve done…_

He pushed that thought away and forced a tired, strained smile. “I just wanta go home,” he rasped. “Am I allowed to want that?”

She nodded, hurting for him. She couldn’t remember when last she’d seen him look so lost, so… _beaten_. “Of course. You’re allowed to want anything.”

The words sent a hard pang through him. “No, I’m not,” he sighed. “Not any more. But that’s all right.” He went to her and gently kissed her cheek. “I think I already got more than a man like me should be allowed.”

_The End_  



End file.
